Wildfires have shaped the environment for millennia, but they are increasing in frequency, range and intensity in response to a hotter climate. The phenomenon is being incorporated into high-resolution simulations of the Earth’s climate by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with a mission to better understand and predict environmental change.
As renewable sources of energy such as wind and sun power are being increasingly added to the country’s electrical grid, old-fashioned nuclear energy is also being primed for a resurgence.
Environmental scientists at ORNL have recently expanded collaborations with minority-serving institutions and historically Black colleges and universities across the nation to broaden the experiences and skills of student scientists while bringing fresh insights to the national lab’s missions.
ORNL researchers are deploying their broad expertise in climate data and modeling to create science-based mitigation strategies for cities stressed by climate change as part of two U.S. Department of Energy Urban Integrated Field Laboratory projects.
Researchers in the geothermal energy industry are joining forces with fusion experts at ORNL to repurpose gyrotron technology, a tool used in fusion. Gyrotrons produce high-powered microwaves to heat up fusion plasmas.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory physicist Elizabeth “Libby” Johnson (1921-1996), one of the world’s first nuclear reactor operators, standardized the field of criticality safety with peers from ORNL and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Friederike (Rike) Bostelmann, who began her career in Germany, chose to come to ORNL to become part of the Lab’s efforts to shape the future of nuclear energy.
To achieve practical energy from fusion, extreme heat from the fusion system “blanket” component must be extracted safely and efficiently. ORNL fusion experts are exploring how tiny 3D-printed obstacles placed inside the narrow pipes of a custom-made cooling system could be a solution for removing heat from the blanket.
A team of researchers has developed a novel, machine learning–based technique to explore and identify relationships among medical concepts using electronic health record data across multiple healthcare providers.
To explore the inner workings of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2, researchers from ORNL developed a novel technique.